Speakers

Sandra Moscoso

By day, Sandra is the deputy program lead of the World Bank’s Global Media Development Programme, a partnership-driven initiative which focuses on information and media as drivers of social accountability and good governance. Sandra also launched and managed the World Bank’s Open Finances program, where she worked to open financial data, make it digestible, and supported the use of open data in development. She has worked on open data efforts in Kenya, Moldova, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and across Latin America.By night, Sandra works on local community efforts related to schoolsand education, active transportation, and open government. For this work, the Sunlight Foundation recognized Sandra as an Open Gov Champion.Prior to the World Bank, Sandra worked as a change management consultant for enterprise systems implementations. A graduate of James Madison University, Sandra lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two children, and the ‘village’ that makes every-day life possible.

Matt Bailey

Matt is a technology strategist and organizer working at the intersection of open data, civic engagement, and public policy. A passionate generalist, his work has ranged from information security to open data and from crowd funding to service design. As a co-founder of Code for DC, he helps build the capacity of DC’s technology community for social good. Matt maintains OpenDataDC, a community data portal that anyone can use to share and discover data about the region. Matt also serves as an advisor to DC’s Office of Open Government. By day, Matt runs a user experience research practice at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, building government services and open data offerings that create a fairer and more intuitive marketplace.

David Eads

David Eads is a news developer for NPR Visuals. He is a founder of the Invisible Institute, FreeGeek Chicago, and the Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew. Eads develops Tarbell, a simple publishing platform for online storytelling.

Laurenellen McCann

@elle_mccann Laurenellen is an organizer and tech policy expert, currently working as a fellow with the Open Technology Institute at New America and a consultant with the Smart Chicago Collaborative. Her work focuses on best practices in civic innovation and participation, with a particular eye to the impact of direct collaboration with individuals and communities in the creation of public interest policy and technology. She also runs The Curious Citizens Project, a social practice art lab that melds placemaking, technology and public art to increase participation in public commons. Previously, Laurenellen served as the National Policy Manager of the Sunlight Foundation. In addition to leading Sunlight’s work on state and local issues, she also co-authored Sunlight’s open data policy platform, and directed the annual community gathering, TransparencyCamp. At the end of 2013, TIME Magazine named her one of 30 Under 30 Changing the World.

Tariq Khokhar

Tariq Khokhar is the World Bank’s first data scientist and Open Data Evangelist. He’s a mathematician and computer scientist by training who’s interests lie where technology, transparency, poverty and data meet. Tariq works on developing new methods for creating, analyzing and visualizing data, and on making data openly accessible for public re-use. He also supports the World Bank’s client countries with open data and statistics programs at the national, regional and sectoral levels. Tariq holds degrees from the University of Cambridge, and currently lives in Washington DC. @tkb

Julie Kanzler

Julie is the Geospatial Development Team Lead for the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO). Julie manages numerous map-based web applications for the District that use data available on data.dc.gov. She has 19 years of developer experience with 10 in local government. As a passionate advocate for open government and user experience design, Julie spearheaded one of the first local government programs to perform usability testing as a civic engagement. She has great fun playing with APIs and building applications, but also enjoys being the wind beneath others’ wings by helping the community get the most out of the District’s data.

Martin Austermuhle joined WAMU as a web producer and reporter in April 2013. Prior to that, he served as editor-in-chief for DCist.com, and has written for the Washington City Paper, Washington Diplomat and other publications. Born in Switzerland, Martin lived throughout Latin America before coming to the U.S. to attend Penn State University and later Georgetown University, where he received a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies. He lives in Columbia Heights with his wife Carolina, a school teacher, and daughter. @maustermuhle

Steven Rich is the database editor for investigations at The Washington Post. He’s worked on investigations probing the NSA, tax lien sales and asset forfeiture, including the DOJ’s Equitable Sharing program, which Eric Holder took major steps to reform earlier this year. He has shared in the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a Robert F. Kennedy award and a Gerald Loeb award. Steven is a graduate of Mizzou and Virginia Tech. Twitter: @dataeditor

Chris Given

Chris serves as the senior creative technologist at Collaborative Communications Group. He has led information design and technical strategy on Illinois and DC school report card projects; these two states were among the top three parent-ranked report cards in a recent ECS survey. His team took first place in the national My School Information Design Challenge, organized by the Foundation for Excellence in Education. He has also worked on data visualization and interactive projects for clients including the Mott Foundation, the George W. Bush Institute, College Success Arizona, the Maryland State Department of Education, and the Urban Teacher Center. By night, he is a civic hacker with Code for DC, where he works on projects related to education and other topics. @cmgiven

Rory Nealon

Rory is a Geospatial Information Specialist for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, supporting its programs in DC and around the world. Living and breathing all things maps, he has studied and worked in the GIS field around the world. From supporting the Iraqi Ministry of Environment’s Humanitarian Demining Program, to studying Geographic Information Science and Earth Observation in the Netherlands he has covered all the corners of the GIS space. Map production, spatial and non-spatial analysis all play a role in his daily work which makes him excited to help spread the gospel of all things maps.

HyeSook Chung

For the past 18 years, HyeSook Chung has worked to improve the lives of children through direct service, program management, philanthropy and advocacy. HyeSook has worked for various nonprofit organizations focusing on the areas of child care, early childhood development, welfare-to-work and school readiness.
Earlier in her career, much of HyeSook’s work was training and assisting family support workers, home visitors and outreach workers in community-based programs in the greater Boston area. In addition, HyeSook worked with the Head Start Quality Improvement Center and the Early Head Start Resource Center supporting the Early Head Start programs throughout the country.
HyeSook serves on numerous advisory boards focused on social change and outcomes for children, including the Annie E. Casey’s KIDS COUNT steering committee, DC Medical Care Advisory Committee and DATA KIND.
She is a proud mother of two DCPS students.

Tommy Shen

Tommy (Tom) Shen is a Data Scientist at the World Bank. Tommy Shen holds a BA in Legal Studies from University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University. Tom specializes in data wrangling, entity resolution, and algorithm design. He prefers R over Python, tabs over white spaces, and waffles over pancakes. @gimperion

Eva Stern

Eva Stern is a senior GIS analyst with the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO). Eva is also the GIS Training Coordinator and lead GIS trainer for the District. Outside of DC Government, Eva is an assistant professor at Northern Virginia Community College (Geospatial Studies) and a mentor in the DC Metro area GIS community. With over 20 years of experience in GIS, Eva is never happier than when she is sharing knowledge or connecting people with each other to build better data. @EvaStern

With Support From:

Craig Hammer

He leads the World Bank Institute’s Global Media Development program, a partnership-drin initiative which focuses on information and media as drivers of good governance. A licensed attorney, his work at the World Bank has included strengthening laws, policies, and regulations to enhance the enabling environment for media, as well as collaborative approaches with media practitioners (journalists, editors, media owners/managers, students, developers, and more) to strengthen the role of media as a key driver of the global knowledge economy, and as a tech-enabled, institution of transparency and accountability.

Justin Arenstein

He is an award-winning investigative journalist and digital strategist currently helping Google and the African Media Initiative strengthen Africa’s watchdog media by working with newsrooms to implement better forensic research and evidence-based reportage. This includes helping media adopt digital tools and data journalism strategies. Justin manages the $1m African News Innovation Challenge, is rolling out HacksHackers chapters across Africa, and supports newsroom-based experiments with citizen reporting, mobile news, and augmented reality platforms. Justin is a former Press Councillor in South Africa, and continues to serve on several media industry bodies and think tanks. His investigative reportage has helped put a senator, two legislature speakers and a provincial cabinet minister behind bars, and contributed to the ouster of two provincial premiers and several other cabinet ministers and state officials on charges ranging from child rape to corruption.

Our Mission

To boost analytical, evidence-based public discussion by giving citizens, journalists and civil society access to the data, digital tools, and computational skills necessary for transforming our societies into digital democracies.